Russia’s statement at UNSC: French resolution ‘betrayal of Syrian people’

Moscow and Beijing have blocked a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate alleged crimes of the Syrian government.
Russia’s envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin explained the decision.

We understand the motives of many delegations who supported or
co-sponsored today the draft resolution referring the Syrian file
to the ICC. We share their emotions caused by the crisis in
Syria, which has been dragging on for way too long. It is hard to
see the destruction, loss of life and suffering of people.

It is more difficult to figure out the motives of France which
initiated this draft and put it to vote, being fully aware in
advance of the fate it will meet. One can hear many complaints
about the lack of unity on Syria within the Security Council,
among P5. Indeed, when that unity is present we manage to achieve
concrete positive results. Among them is undoubtedly the Security
Council Resolution 2118 on the destruction of the Syrian chemical
stockpile – that program is about to be successfully completed.
Another important benchmark was the Security Council Resolution
2139 on humanitarian issues. P5 unity is important. After all, it
is for a reason that France has been pushing for P5’s engagement
in the political settlement of the crisis, having failed however
to advance any positive substantive ideas.

Then why deal such a blow to P5 unity at this stage? Is it just
to try once again to create a pretext for armed intervention in
the Syrian conflict?

One could not overlook that the head of the French diplomacy saw
it fit to take advantage of his recent visit to Washington to
publicly criticize the United States for refusing to shower
missiles and bombs on Syria last fall.

It should be pointed out that this damage to P5 unity is
inflicted at a critical point in the efforts to find a political
solution to the Syrian crisis.

An involuntary hiatus created by the resignation of Lakhdar
Brahimi should be used for an in-depth, fair and collective
analysis of the situation, for seeking out any possible reserves
with the view to break the vicious circle of violence. Useful
food for thought in this regard is contained in the
“political testament” left by Lakhdar Brahimi to the
Security Council on May 13.

This is exactly what the draft Security Council resolution tabled
by Russia aims at – to foster the process of “local
truces”. The draft is not to the liking of our western
colleagues who claim that the settlements already achieved do not
care standards. One cannot but recall a Russian saying: A bad
peace is better than a good quarrel.

And what are our Western colleagues proposing instead? Talk good
for naïve people that they will be supplying new types of weapons
to “good” opposition groups only? Their list of the
“good guys” now includes the “Islamic Front”, which has
openly confessed to a series of brutal terrorist acts, including
a recent one in Aleppo that claimed the lives of dozens of
civilians. I would note that our western colleagues are demanding
that cross-border humanitarian deliveries to Syria be conducted
through border-crossings controlled by the Islamic Front. At the
same time, they have blocked for a long time any condemnation by
the Security Council of numerous terrorist acts committed in
Syria.

It is pursuing the regime change by force in Syria at all costs
that precipitated the drawing out of the crisis and undermines
the Geneva negotiations. It is indicative that Ahmad Jarba,
leader of the National Coalition, did not make the effort to show
up during the Geneva negotiations and instead travels the world
in search of weapons. And Ahmad Al-Khateeb, his predecessor, was
removed from office just for attempting to launch talks with
Damascus to stop the bloodshed.

In this context it leaps into the eye that there is not a single
word on the political settlement and the negotiations process
among Syrians in the communiqué of the latest May 15 meeting of
the so-called “London 11”. And the western “troika” was taking
great pains to dissuade the Secretary General and his Special
Envoy from calling another round of Geneva negotiations.

What justice can one talk about when the overriding policy aims
at escalating the conflict? The draft resolution rejected today
reveals an attempt to use the ICC to further inflame the
political passions and lay the groundwork for eventual outside
military intervention.

It should be noted that the so-called “Caesar Report” used to
build up tension ahead of the introduction of this draft was
based on unconfirmed information obtained from unverifiable
sources and therefore cannot serve as a platform for taking such
a serious decision.

One cannot ignore the fact that the last time the Security
Council referred a case to the ICC – the Libyan file by its
Resolution 1970 – it did not help to resolve the crisis, but
instead added fuel to the flames of conflict. And after the
cessation of hostilities the ICC – to put it mildly – did not
rise to the occasion. The ICC does not contribute to a return to
normalcy or justice in Libya, evading the most burning issues.
The death of civilians as a result of NATO bombardments was
somehow left outside its scope. Our colleagues from NATO
countries arrogantly refused to address this issue alltogether.
They even refused to apologize. And they wax eloquent about
shame! They advocate fighting impunity, but are themselves
practicing the policy of all-permissiveness.

The United States frequently shows the path towards the ICC to
these or those, but it is reluctant to accede to the Rome Statute
itself. And in today’s draft the United States insisted on an
exemption for itself and its citizens.
Great Britain is a party to the ICC, but it is for some reason
unenthusiastic about the exploration that began there of the
issue of crimes committed by the British nationals during the
Iraq war.

If the United States and the United Kingdom were to refer their
Iraqi file to the ICC together, the world would see that they are
truly against impunity.

Mr. President, we proceed from the premise that the Geneva
Communiqué of June 30, 2012 remains at the core of efforts to
settle the Syrian crisis. The Communiqué interprets the principle
of accountability and national reconciliation as interrelated,
leaving the leading role in this process to the Syrians
themselves,

We are convinced that justice in Syria will eventually prevail.
Those culpable of perpetrating grave crimes will be punished. But
in order for this to happen, peace is needed first and foremost.
Russia will continue to exert every effort to stop the bloodshed
as soon as possible. We call upon our Western colleagues to
abandon their futile dead-end policy of endlessly heating up the
Syrian crisis. We invite everyone who really values the interests
of the Syrian people to join us in the efforts aimed at a Syrian
political settlement.

To state as the Permanent Representative of France has done today
– that the political process does not exist any longer – is
simply irresponsible. This is truly – betrayal of the Syrian
people.